


like endless rain into a paper cup

by FakePlastikTrees



Category: The Mindy Project
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-27
Updated: 2014-07-27
Packaged: 2018-02-10 16:37:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2032134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FakePlastikTrees/pseuds/FakePlastikTrees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a sleepless night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	like endless rain into a paper cup

 

It’s quiet for a Friday night. But then again, Summer weekends tend to be pretty quiet in the city over all. Mostly, because city people tend to get their outdoorsy cred by disappearing like an M. Night Shyamalan mystery the moment Friday evening hits.

Not Danny, however.

No, Danny would rather bear the suffocating, boiler room-like weather than set foot on a camping site. Mindy is glad about this, because while Haiti was a growing experience, she’d gotten enough tent cred to last her a lifetime. She’d much rather sleep in an air conditioned room—they were at her place tonight and this gave her the freedom to let the AC run through the night without too many complaints from Danny—snuggled up in her boyfriend’s arms, than on the hard, insect ridden dirt floor of some mountain somewhere outside New York.

The silence was unsettling however and she was having a hard time getting to sleep. Danny stirred behind her, sighing heavily up at the ceiling.

 

“Danny? You awake?”

“Yeah, you?”

“Me talking to you implies that I am in fact awake, yes.”

“You once threatened me not to touch the leftover Chinese while you were literally in REM sleep, don’t make it sound like it’s ludicrous that could be asleep right now.”

She turned to face him, resting on her side with her hand tucked under her cheek as she watched his profile in the dark. “Babe, that was a legitimate fear of mine, don’t joke about that.”

“What was? Sleep talking?”

“No, that you’d eat the leftovers without me, you know I love cold day old Chinese food.”

He laughed.

“I can’t sleep.”

“Me either.” He turned and looked at her, mentally noting how cuddly she looked in her pink pajamas, all snuggled up under the covers. It was far too cold in her room with the AC on, but he could not talk her into sleeping without it when it was a hundred degrees outside. She stared back at him with that hopeful glower, as if expecting him to either cure her insomnia or find something for her to do. “Do you want to watch T.V.?”

She scrunched her nose up and did something that looked like a shake of her head, “Late night television is for break ups and crying.”

“Hmm. Do you want—some ice cream?”

“Mm—maybe in a bit?”

“Do you want to have sex?” It was suggested as an after thought. Not that he wouldn’t be up for it, but after two times earlier in the evening, it would take him a while.

She sighed and shook her head. “No. Will you cuddle me?”

“I’ll cuddle you.” He said and extended his arm out for her to tuck herself into his side.

“You’ll cuddle me hard core?”

“I’ll cuddle the crap out of you.” He kissed the top of her head and lingered there a moment to rake in the sweet smell of her shampoo.

She chuckled, sending a gentle vibration against his chest as she draped her arms over his middle and scoot in a little tighter while he held her close.

“Danny, if we were to wake up tomorrow and all of New York City had disappeared except for us, would you care?”

“Where did everyone go?”

“I don’t know. They’re just gone.”

“Yeah, but, is it like—aliens? The rapture?”

“Aliens. The rapture scares me.”

“But aliens don’t.”

“Danny, aliens know where they’re going and where they come from, aliens are tangible—“

“Aliens are not tangible, they’re not real.”

“—Aliens are tangible, if aliens took everyone in New York except for us, they’d leave some sort of message. The rapture sounds so ominous, so judgmental. Aliens just want to learn.”

“But why wouldn’t the aliens take us?”

“Well,” She started, raking her nails along his side, making him drowsy and compliant. “I think we’d be their first choice, but they’d peer through the window, see us sleeping, wrapped up in each other, you, this chiseled adorable, Italian Stallion.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Me, a breathtakingly beautiful Indian woman, they’d be like ‘what are we doing? These two should be procreating, we shouldn’t study their insides, let’s just take the rest of these bozos’.”

“That sounds nice.”

“Yeah?” She asked, smiling as she turned her face onto his chest and dropped a kiss there.

“Yeah, we’d have the city all to ourselves, we could eat everywhere, visit everything without having to wait in line, are you kidding? That sounds great. Wait a minute, is Bruce Springsteen gone?”

“Mmm—no. Bruce was touring in…LA and he’s fine. He’ll be back in no time.”

He relaxed under her, began to gently draw circles on her back with his palm. “Sounds good then. Everyone else can go.”

“I was hoping you’d say that.”

“I’d maybe start to miss the guys after a few weeks. I wouldn’t want to have to walk ALL of Morgan’s dogs. I’d definitely miss Ritchie, but alien abductions aren’t usually forever, right? They’d be back. I guess if this is a hypothetical abduction, we can say that all of our significant others would come back after a few days of peace and quiet. Yeah. I could live with that. Who would you want the aliens to bring back? Mindy? Min?”

He tilted his head and glanced down. He couldn’t see past the head of silky dark hair, but he recognized the easy rise and fall that signaled she was fast asleep. Somehow, that was enough to lull his body into a resting state, and with one last kiss atop Mindy’s head, Danny closed his eyes and was asleep within seconds. Later that night, Mindy mumbled something about the leftover pizza in the refrigerator while Danny dreamt of a pair of E.T.’s curiously watching them sleep.

 

In what seemed to Danny like only five minutes later, Mindy was affectionately poking at his face, nudging him awake, making ridiculous sounds.

“Beep boop, boop, beep. Wake up, please.” She whispered.

He lifted one eyelid, effectively glaring up at her before he sleepily grumbled, “Are you kidding me?”

She feigned remorse she was aware Danny wasn’t buying while she drew lazy circles across his chest. She’d been sleeping on it and she could see just a tiny drool spot on the black Springsteen tee. “You stopped talking and I woke up. I still can’t sleep.”

He sighed, opened the other eye, and realized that now he was fully awake. “You can’t sleep?”

She shook her head.

“What do you want?”

She pouted, her eyes wider than normal, conveying all the information he needed with one look.

“You want ice cream,” He said and she nodded.

“All right.”

She watched him get out of bed, ruffling his hair as he padded across the floor, and through the open door. “Thank you!”

She stretched out on the bed, glancing out her window, at the serene sky for a moment, and then turned herself onto his side of the bed, burying her face in his pillow and breathing in deeply the smell of him. After shave, dandruff shampoo, and something manly and fresh. Like mowed lawn. She laughed into the pillow, picturing Danny grumpily mowing a lawn, sweaty, with his brow furrowed in deep concentration, attempting to get every little twig to an acceptable length. She often thought about them in the near future, somewhere outside the city, with a house with a yard, maybe a swing set. Or maybe a place in the city. She’d seen what had happened to Gwen and she did not like it. She would want to be near everything, and she would want her kids to be near everything.

She felt a cold, sharp object pressed against her arm and she yelped.

“Owe!”

“That did not hurt, don’t be dramatic.”

“You surprised me!”

“I’m sorry,” His apology is weak, but he leaned over her and dropped a kiss on her lips that made it all better. “Sit up. Eat your ice cream.”

He sat across her, resting against the headboard where he turn on the light on the nightstand and see her stare lovingly at her ice cream.

“You put gummy bears in it!”

“I figured I’d save myself another trip.”

“Thank you, babe, you’re so thoughtful.”

“You’re welcome. Hey, no more abduction talk before bed, I had a freaky dream about aliens in the two minutes I got to sleep before you woke me up, demanding ice cream.”

“Really?” She asked through a mouthful of Rocky Road. “It’s a good thing I woke you then, huh?”

He grunted his response, trying and failing to suppress a smirk as she offered him a spoonful of her ice cream, a gesture seen as often as the Loch Ness Monster.

“Come on, you know you want some.”

He leaned forward as she did the same and fed him a hearty serving he licked off her spoon. He winced. “I hate Rocky Road.”

“Weirdo.” And then, Mindy froze, wide eyed as she dropped her spoon with a clank into her bowl. “Danny.”

Alarmed, he sat up, “What? What’s the matter? Are you okay?”

“He kicked,” She breathlessly answered, lifting her bowl to get a better look at her pregnant belly.

“What?” He asked, clambering over the comforter to get to where she was seated at the other end of the bed.

She sat, motionless, shifting her gaze from her belly, then back to Danny. “I swear to god, he kicked, Danny.” 

He was shocked and amazed, staring at the small mound that was her stomach now and said nothing.

Mindy’s eyes welled with emotion as she reached for his hand and placed it over her stomach, “Here. Feel.”

He shook his head after moments of no movement, his heart pounding, a knot forming in his throat.

“Maybe he wants more ice cream.” She ate a spoonful, swallowed, and waited. Nothing. She could see the disappointment on his face. The utter heartbreak in his eyes killed her. “Give him a minute.”

Slowly, his hand fell away from her and he shrugged. “He’s done kicking, I think.”

Mindy jumped a little as she felt another kick, this one harder than the last. At twenty weeks and no kicking, they were beginning to grow worried, but there it was now. On a late, sleepless summer night, kicking for ice cream. She pulled Danny’s hand back and placed it where she felt movement. “Feel that?”

His eyes widened, his mouth dropping open. “There it is, I can feel it.”

 

Another kick.

 

They looked at each other and shared an anxious laugh.

“It’s not the ice cream,” Mindy said. “It’s you. He’s responding to his dad’s voice. Talk to him.”

“It’s not me, I talk to him all the time—woah!”

“You see? It’s you! He’s talking to you!” She laughed, leaving the long forgotten ice cream at a safe distance on the mattress to wipe a stray tear before Danny could notice it.

He leaned in closely, holding her belly in both hands. “Hey—hey buddy, how’s it going in there? You comfortable? Everything to your liking?” There was a kick. “First lesson, the crust is the best part. You hear that?”

Mindy rolled her eyes through the smile she couldn’t keep off her face, “Don’t tell him that. He can leave the crust if he wants. You’ll eat his crust. Tell him you’ll eat his crust.”

“I will, I will eat your crusts. And your mom’s because she’s kid of a brat sometimes.”

She smacked his shoulder. “Hey!”

“But she’s very pretty.”

The kicking stopped, but Danny lingered there a moment longer, staring, bewildered, feeling more like a father than before, feeling more terrified than before, but more excited than before, too.

When he looked up, Mindy was staring back, leaning back on her hands with a look that mirrored his own. They didn’t say anything. She smiled at him and he smiled back, everything he was thinking already there between them. She nodded as if she could hear his frantic thoughts and sat up, meeting him for a kiss that tasted of Rocky Road ice cream and gummy bears.

“It wasn’t the ice cream!” He said when they pulled apart, ecstatic.

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Yes!” He throw his fists in the air and she laughed, carefully climbing out of bed and reaching for the bowl of melting ice cream She’d learned to be very careful when transferring from one place to another lately, as her balance was no longer her own thanks to her protruding belly.

 

“Where are you going?”

“Just going to take this to kitchen.”

“I can do that--”

“Nuh-uh, you sit right there and relax. I will take care of the bowl. I will even wash it. But don’t get used to it. This is a one time thing. Like a Big Foot sighting.

He laughed and lounged comfortable in bed, trying to picture their son. He hoped he looked like Mindy. A dark skin, handsome devil with Italian blood pumping through his veins was just the right kind of kid. He pictured Mindy with him, proud and smiling. He drew in a deep breath and slowly exhaled. He was happy.

He was lost in thought for longer than he’d noticed and Mindy had been watching from the doorway.

“You okay there, Danny?”

He blinked at looked up at her, her hair long and wavy, her hand protectively over her belly. She was beautiful, and they were going to be parents. His mind briefly wandered back to a day that seemed so far away now, when he almost lost her and he was instantly filled with relief that he did not let all this just slip away.

“I’m great.”

She shook her head as she chuckled, then made her way around the bed to crawl in beside him. “You’re a crazy, little man.” Was the last thing she said before drifting off to sleep in his arms.

This time it was he who couldn’t sleep. How could he sleep now that he was this exhilarated? He supposed he’d have to sleep eventually, but for now, he enjoyed this night. Because this tonight, he’d officially become a father.


End file.
